Longview Water Report

Posted on 21st February 2014 at 17:10

City of Longview officials say that they now know exactly what’s causing the city’s water problems, and it’s NOT the water coming out of the new Mint Farm Water Treatment Plant. At a City Council workshop held last night, City Manager Bob Gregory says that months of study and testing clearly shows that the problems are in the water supply pipes, not the water itself…waterreport…Contract engineers studied the city’s water, also setting up a “pipe rig” using sections of water main actually taken out of a location where problems were reported, and those tests unequivocally show that the materials that have built up over 70 years of service were leaching back into the water going into houses. They also say that as long as chlorine levels are kept up, those materials are kept in the pipes, and don’t go into solution. At the same time, tests clearly show that the “white-spotting” problems are caused by silica, not calcium carbonate. They say that this is naturally-occurring in the water, and cannot be removed by any common or inexpensive measures. The City Council approved moving ahead with additional study of the silica situation, to see if there might be some other way to get that materials economically removed from the city’s water.